


Taste

by VerdePradera



Series: Lawlight Week 2020 [2]
Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:14:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23835196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdePradera/pseuds/VerdePradera
Summary: "‘Light did I ever tell you why I love sweets?’I bite, L never volunteers anything about his past. This might as well be my only chance to know something about him, even if it ends up being a well crafted lie."L tells Light about his past, it ends up being darker than he ever thought.
Relationships: L/Yagami Light
Series: Lawlight Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714048
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	Taste

**Author's Note:**

> Set shortly after episode 24 when Light recovers his memories  
> A fic for Lawlight Week 2020; Day 2: Sweetness/Bitterness

‘Light did I ever tell you why I love sweets?’  
  
It is the middle of the night and everyone has already left for home. It is just the two of us in the vastness of the viewing room, a thousand screens showing different news outlets while we keep investigating the Kira case. Or that is what we were trying to do, until L asked me that question.  
  
L crouches on his chair in that awkward monkey way of his. His face, illuminated by the ever changing lights coming from the screens, looks particularly somber while he stares at the piece of strawberry shortcake he holds in his hands.  
  
I bite, L never volunteers anything about his past. This might as well be my only chance to know something about him, even if it ends up being a well crafted lie.  
‘I don’t think you’ve ever told me anything like that, Ryuzaki,’ I say, looking him in the eye with as much intrigue as I can manage. L looks aloof as always but there is something about the way he holds his cake that feels particularly protective, like it has just become extremely valuable.  
  
‘This is a secret Light and you have to promise not to tell anyone,’ seriousness seeps his words and I nod slowly, suddenly this has peaked my attention even further. ‘I am only telling you because you are my only friend,’ L says in a mix of complicity and secrecy I have never heard him use before. I have to constrain my facial muscles from showing the distaste at being called his friend. ‘I promise, Ryuzaki, I will never tell anyone about this,’ I answer, embedding earnestness in every syllable of my carefully selected words.  
  
‘I am meant to love sugar, it is my primary fuel and what my body is meant to process the fastest and the easiest. The more refined the sugar the better it is. My body craves sugar like Kira craves death.’ I barely avoid grimacing at the ridiculousness of his fallacies. Yet, there is a shadow in L’s face that obscures his features the more he talks, maybe it is a trick of the light in the room but all of a sudden he looks sinisterly youthful, like the ghost of a boy who has died young.  
  
‘But that’s not the real reason I like them. I like sweets because where I was made you could only eat sweets when you had been successful at a task.’ His words crash onto me like angry waves against a cliff in a stormy night. There is so much contempt in his words I know a weaker man would have broken eye contact with him. ‘But I have proved myself and everyone that ever knew me that I am the greatest success that was ever made so I deserve to have every single ounce of sugar I want in my life.’ L lifts his head and as if to challenge me, I tilt my head with intrigue at the strange word choice he has made.  
  
‘That sounds awfully terrible Ryuzaki, but what do you mean you were “made” Ryuzaki, you are not an object.’ The implications of his words are too strong for me to let them go without at least asking this.  
  
‘I may not be an object Light, but I was very much made. I was a genetically engineered soldier designed to be able to kill any target by any means and outsmart every single human made by nature.’ His voice resonates in the emptiness of the room and a chill runs down my spine at the way he looks at me. If his words are true I am fighting a real monster in my quest to make the world anew. ‘I’m sure I don’t even qualify as human by most biological standards, I have the DNA of over forty humans and also a handful of animals.’ The absurdness of these words have just reached unbelievable levels. L is too smart to try to make me believe something like this, there is no way any of what he says is true, so I refute him.  
  
‘Ryuzaki what do you mean by that, that is impossible!’  
  
He chooses to ignore my words completely and raises me a question ‘Light, now that we know about the Death Note,’ he says ‘do you think Kira can even kill me? What can the Death Note do against me, a monster made from science and extreme experimentation?’  
  
His tone feels detached but his eyes carry a melancholic glint as he adds ‘Am I even human?’  
  
And then it hits me, harder than a thousand bolts. If this is true then I can’t kill L. _Is he human?_ What is he? Can shinigamis even see his lifespan? All this time I have made my plans thinking about how I could manage to get his name and write it in the Death Note. But if this is true then there would be no point on any of that. I have been a fool, it never even crossed my mind that L could be anything but human. If shinigamis exist, why could L not be human.  
  
L does not seem to notice the turmoil that has befallen me at the realization caused by his words as he keeps on adding to his tale. ‘When I was a small child my creators would put me in a room with a group of fifteen other experiments that were much bigger, faster and stronger than me, and I had to fight every single one of them. It was almost a Death Match, anything could happen.’ Even the unlikeliness of this happening in reality does not stop me from feeling repulsed by the thought of humans so rotten that they would put their own creations to fight one another like in a cockfight. L looks like he has traveled to another time, eyes gone to whenever this happened.  
  
‘The first time I trashed them all so badly the creators had to send muscle heads to pull me apart to make sure I didn’t cause any lethal injuries. That’s when they noticed I was special, I was better than any other project they had ever made, they realized they just needed me to hone my skills further.’ A hint of vengeance bleeds into his words when he says that. I feel further disturbance by his tale the more he reveals. ‘In the beginning they would come at me one by one but as time passed they started to gang up on me all together on the behest of the scientists. Even then, I only lost once. That was the only time I didn’t get any sugar in a full day.’ His hand subconsciously clenches his plate of cake even harder but his mind comes back to me. I feel slightly appalled by the thought of the remarkable detective L as a baby sitting at a table, wishing for sugar that would not come.  
  
‘If you think about it, the lack of sugar in a meal was particularly cruel, as it was our main source of energy. The more you lost the less you had it, and the more likely it was that you would keep failing. If you were ever to fall into this circle it would eventually render you useless and doomed you to be discarded of. Many experiments died like this, once they had proven themselves a failure, they would only spiral downwards until their only purpose was to be dissected and used as research material in their autopsies.’ Disgust runs rampant in my veins at the unfairness of this, there is no place for people like them in this world. ‘Anyways, it doesn’t even matter, I made sure I always surpassed everyone who crossed my path and the ones who had anything of interest in them I would steal their finest techniques from and crush them forever.' Only smugness tints his words as he says smiling 'In the end I got all the sugar I wanted thanks to them.’ Repulse grows in my stomach at his attitude. These words are a confession, an admission of guilt. You may have been a victim L but you are no less of a monster than them, there is no place for you in my world either.  
  
Apparently the memory of cake and sugars doesn’t seem to have brightened him at all, there is sarcasm in his words as he says ‘Looking back there wasn’t even a good cake, it was all poorly made and had too little cream. For a project that had billions invested on you’d think they would have had better food. But us projects never got anything really good.’ L, the poor victim of this tale turned monster. My previous self would have been destroyed by this story, but as it is, Kira has made the right judgement for you and you will not escape it.  
  
Alas, I must keep my play of the ever caring hero. So in a great show of anger and indignation I jump out of my chair to hold him by the shoulders and scream at him. ‘Who did this? Who would ever do that to children? Who would ever be cruel enough to do that to anyone?’  
  
Out of the blue amusement shines in his eyes and he doesn’t even try to hide it when he says ‘I thought you would have figured it out already since Kira has had some involvement with them.’ Impossible, I would have never taken involvement with such lowly humans, there is no way he is telling the truth. ‘Tell me Light, have you ever heard of the Lawliet group?’  
  
And that’s when I know, he is not lying, this is not some fabricated tale to lure me into feeling pity for him by appealing to my basic protective feelings. There must be some truth in this. And if there is, L is not just any genetically engineered human, L is a Japanese genetically engineered human. He must have been made by the same underground group who built biological weapons and tested it on orphans taken secretly from streets around the world to sell them to big corporations as well as to make under the table deals with the same governments that were supposed to stop them.  
  
So I say what I remember best about this ‘My father watched a part of their case seven years ago when someone tipped the NPA off to one of their abandoned secret facilities. I didn’t know they also made some of the orphans that they experimented on.’ Realizations flow through me as I connect the dots one by one. The tip off must have been all his doing. L must have taken care of the bigger heads first and deleted all the files before anyone in the NPA saw. As all the files I could access accounted only for the incarceration of the scientists in charge of the experiments and the kidnappings, as well as a handful of the lower ranked scientists who were pardoned in exchange for working for a handful of governments around the world.  
  
When I got the Death Note I killed each one of them I could find.  
  
Nobody gets to play God in my New World.  
  
I let go of his shoulders as I let further realization stream on my face while I murmur ‘You did it, you were the one to tip the NPA off, you made sure everyone who held any form of authority in Japan knew what was going on in there.’ L smirks at me with childish glee growing in him as I add, because it has really just come to me, ‘You planned your own public rescue.’  
  
L’s smirk grows bigger, taking over his whole face like Cheshire's cat.  
  
‘That is a cute idea Light but that is not what happened at all. I was more than capable of setting myself free on my own. I just grew tired of being in confinement and the constant exploitation in their hopes of perfecting me as their master weapon.’ Damned L who enjoys seeing me make mistakes and tip toe around my answers. What else do you want me to say!? You are telling me all the things pointing out to that! Misleading fucker.  
  
However, L doesn’t let me sink in my shame and anger further because he promptly adds ‘Eventually, an idea came to me, I didn’t have to fight those teenagers, I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to be successful. I could be free. So I did, one day after weeks of preparations I escaped, I think I was eight years old, but I’m not really sure, I never cared much about my age there.’  
  
It has become yet again extremely hard to believe that such a young child would manage to pull such feats, but then again every piece of this tale he has told me is borderline old school Hollywood sci-fi. In spite of that, I let fake concern wash over my face for the young boy who escaped the facilities of the Lawliet group all on his own.  
  
L’s words feel incredibly familiar when he says ‘Eventually I found my way around the world and forced the leaders of the world to acknowledge me as the greatest detective. Once that was secured, every part of my plan was in place. I had become justice, so I did what I had to do.’ And that’s when I knew we had both reached the same judgement on these rancid people. There is no place in this world for them. And we have both taken the same actions against them.  
  
‘I killed them all. I made sure every single person who had ever touched me or led to a part of my creation was put on death row and died within a year.’ He is unreachable and impassive as he says this, it seems to me this experience has molded him in ways I can only try to understand. He takes a break after this to eat a piece of his cake. I take this as a chance to say something I believe I would have wanted to tell him ‘‘What a dreadful story of pain and torture L, you have been really strong. I am sorry this happened to you, I am certain that it was not acceptable-’  
  
L cuts me short before I can say anything more ‘There is no need for your words of comfort Light, I have become quite the success, even in the eyes of my dead creators I must be considered one, so please don’t bother.’ He tries to brush me off whereas I will not budge in this. I must say it, I would have fought him tooth and nail to say this.  
  
‘L, I understand, and I am heartbroken by what you say, but you are not a success.’ L frowns moving his legs to cover one of his feet with the other hunching more on himself than usual. L’s face grows conflicted, distress flashing across his eyes and he clenches his cake tighter, L seems to have confessed to me an unspeakable secret and I seem to have hurt him.  
  
It must be the way he looks or the sudden tension that has grown in him as a result of my words, but now the part who has been with him all the past months is screaming at me to kiss him. It is in that moment that for once I choose to listen to it.  
  
‘You are not a success L, you are successful.’ and then I kiss L in a way that is more challenging than it is comforting because I don’t know how to react to everything that L has told me and my body doesn’t seem to know either. L doesn’t seem to complain though. As he leaves his cake to the side and reciprocates even harder.  
  
It tastes like cake, like sugar and lies. It’s the sweetest kiss I’ll ever have.  
  
We kiss, we make out, and we cling to each other in a way I can’t understand yet seem to need. After a while we are both out air and panting on our chairs. A strange pressure settles around us and I choose not to break it. This is inexplicable, for months we have fought, we have played and we have stood on opposite sides of everything that has come our way, there was no reason to kiss each other. But there was no reason for L to tell me any of this either.  
  
I fear I have somehow gotten caught in one of L’s machinations to uncover my identity as Kira and this has been one of the many traps for it. So I take the chance to turn this into a counterattack, if you want to bare your fake soul to me Ryuzaki I will do the same to you, L.  
  
I look at him in the eye and smile softly at him, ‘Before this, it had never occurred to me that you could be anything but human.’ L gives me an undecipherable look while he moves closer and caresses the back of my hand. I turn my hand around and gently take his hand in mine. We stay like that for a while, thinking, holding, staring at the other. For someone who I want to kill, L makes terribly good company at this moment.  
  
Eventually it is Watari who puts an end to our hand holding session, bringing L a new assortment of sweets. I take back my hand and sit further away in my chair. L thanks him as he retreats to some secret place in the tower reserved for L and him and all their secrets.  
  
‘It is very late Light, you should stay here, you can sleep in our old room. I will stay here continuing the investigation.’ He says, while putting a pink macaroon in his mouth. It feels extremely strange to be offered the one room that has no surveillance at all in the whole tower. I ponder whether it is a sign of fictitious trust from L or some way to lure me in into some sense of comfort to spy me further. Probably both.  
  
‘Or would you rather we arranged a car for you to go home?’ That feels like a trap, as tempting as it is. Before I recovered my memories, after all of this, I would have certainly taken any chance to stay close to L. It will only end up being counterproductive.  
  
‘It’s alright, there is no need for that Ryuzaki, I will stay here in the room tonight.’ I say looking at him longingly. ‘Very well, you may go now, Watari has made sure it is well prepared for you.’ It feels like he is kicking me away, I may have overdone it. I give one last hearty smile as I bid him goodbye, and head to our old room.  
  
The whole place is just like it used to be, bare walls, computer chargers permanently put next to every place L would have sat around and one king sized bed where we used to sleep. Well, I did, I’m not a hundred percent sure on what L did in the times I was out. Now that I think about it it makes much more sense why he wouldn’t sleep often, if he was telling the truth he probably didn’t even need it much.  
  
I lay on the bed wearing clothes borrowed from the closet in here. I can’t sleep but I can’t try to contact Ryuk or Rem either as there is no guarantee that L hasn’t put surveillance here after I left. I want to ask him, I need to know; is L human? Was he made? For once in his lifetime since we met, did L tell me the truth? Why would he ever confer the power of this knowledge to me of all people?  
  
I toss and turn thinking about what L has told me, trying to decipher the meaning behind L’s words. How much is true, how much is falsified. L has a knack for handing out disinformation like a priest would give the host in mass. I want to go home and scream my lungs out at Ryuk but I know I can’t.  
  
After three hours of failed attempts at sleeping, I think about what I can actually do from now on. There are so many things that will have to change. My whole act will have to take a different direction now. I ponder about this for another hour when I decide there is no moment like 3 a.m. to take action into all this.  
  
I decide to do something meaningful for L, like my amnesiac self would probably have tried, and ask Watari through a speaker just outside the room to let me use the kitchen and watch me while I bake a cake. He agrees to it and directs me to what must be one of the kitchens in the building.  
  
I think about all the things I have seen Sayu do for Valentine’s day and make up a recipe by remembering her ingredients. I have never baked something in my life before and it must show because after the second attempt of making something that looks like it belongs to the trash, Watari offers me tips from a speaker while he watches me from the many cameras installed all over the place.  
  
I want to refuse him politely on principle, because I know I can pull this through on my own, a simple mix of sugars and flour will not defeat me. Still, a batter of disturbingly thick chocolate cake stares at me from one of the counters so I see myself forced to agree to follow his tips.  
  
By the time I obtain a cake that looks edible enough it’s nearly breakfast time and I choose to take the easy way out and cover it with a mix of chocolate and whipped cream I found in the fridge. Watari asks me if I want him to deliver it to L or if I want to do it myself.  
  
I tell him to give it to him later, after I have showered and ridden myself of the copious amounts of sugar and flour that cover me. After that is settled I thank him profusely and take my leave towards my old room.  
  
Once I have recovered my natural skin color and disposed of the soiled clothing I go back to the viewing room to find L with the full cake on his lap, eating it with a fork. I try to play it cool by sitting next to him and asking if he managed to get any sleep. ‘I don’t need much sleep nowadays, so I didn’t even try, but it seems like you couldn’t either.’ I shake my head no and take the chance to divert the topic towards the cake.  
  
‘This is not a very good cake Light, the batter feels coarse and the cream is too soft,’ He says with that impassive tone he uses when feeling bored. My blood boils in my veins. Feel more grateful I did something for you! You ingrate fucker! You don’t deserve that cake, you don’t deserve anything! I curse you and Watari for having betrayed me like this.  
  
I’m just about to punch him in the face when he suddenly says ‘It reminds me of my childhood, I like it. Thanks, Light.’ Abruptly feeling less appeased by his words, I force myself to calm down. I have had enough fist fights with L in the last months to last me a lifetime. It will be better to let this one go. I will dispose of L altogether soon enough.  
  
‘You have been particularly attentive lately,’ L says as he takes another bite of the cake. ‘Did my words affect you so much?’  
  
‘Not at all L, not at all. I have just come to the realization that you are more special than I thought.’

**Author's Note:**

> Take this fic with a pinch of salt, I'm sure there is no scientific way to put 40 people's DNA and even splice some animal genetics in there in the legally approved science world. But there is always place for some sci-fi right? 
> 
> This ended up being darker than I wanted but welp, L will haunt me for this like he did to Light in his final moments.  
>   
> Reviews and questions are always welcomed!
> 
> Hit me up on Tumblr as [ Halfiez](https://halfiez.tumblr.com/)


End file.
